How Can You Keep Them Protected?

The case of Kelsey Smith (pictured right in this AP photo) is one that could scare any parent.  Miss Smith, 18, went out to Target to buy her boyfriend a gift.  At 7:10 PM she was forced into her car.  Two hours later the car was found in a parking lot of a nearby mall.

Police found Smith’s body in a wooded area near Grandview, Mo., about 20 miles east of the Target store. Authorities did not say how she died.

I always find it unnerving when I read about children and teens dying.  For one thing, it must be a sure sign that I’m getting older and now have children of my own.  The sheer randomness of this occurrence is a parents worst nightmare.

You see, as a parent you spend a lot of time praying over, reading to, nurturing, and loving your children.  You’d like to always protect them, but you know that you cannot.  So, little by little you spend the time to gradually wean them from your protection and teach them how to live and work outside of the home (unless you’re 61 and still living in your mom’s home).

I mean, you could try the following:

• Never let your daughters travel at night.
• Never give them their own car.
• Never let them ride alone.
• Teach them how to kickbox
• Buy them some mace or a gun

Some of that might work in some cases.  But you cannot always control everything that’s going on in their lives.  You need to trust that God has a plan for them– even though it’s hard.

This is something that’s really easy to say and really tough to live out.  Despite all the words that we say and use to say that we trust God in all things, it sometimes takes our willingness to give up to His control the thing or person that we hold dear in order for Him to use us.  Just think of what Abraham must have been going through when he was told to sacrifice Isaac.

Nothing can get in the way of our love for Him– and yet we can also rest assured that nothing escapes His all-seeing eye, and that all things work together for good to them that are the called according to His purpose.